You may have seen recently we've changed our logo. The decision to do so came out of nowhere and I honestly can't remember where I got the initial idea. The timing of it all worked out well though as I had the idea a couple of months ago and then realized that my 10 year business anniversary was coming up in August. I knew I had to do something big for my 10 year, so what better way than to do a whole company rebrand! So we switched from our old circular cat logo to a spotted jaguar placed in front of some pine trees; quite a dramatic change. (We have 2 logos now technically, that one and then the letters CCC with a claw mark through them, will explain that more later). I had several people ask why the change, and why a big cat? My answer was more than just a "because I think it looks cooler" (which I do lol), so I wanted to do a bit of a blog post explaining that, as well as my view on my business as a whole.
A big part of the rebrand was shifting the identity of my business in the minds of consumers, or at least the visual aspects of my branding. After being in the cat industry for 10 years, I've gathered a good idea as to what it's about and how it's perceived. With my rebrand I wanted to carve out a space in the industry that felt a bit less centered on eccentrics but rather more robust. Despite being a cat lover, I've never really identified with the "crazy cat person" stereotypes, so it's been interesting working in the space for so long and often being lumped in as such. And don't get me wrong, "crazy cat people" are some of my favourite people to work with, and I will happily serve as many that come my way. But my brand is an extension of me, and I want to ensure it is accurately representing what I want it to.
I landed on the big jungle cat idea pretty quickly. I thought including a domestic cat in my logo wouldn't do much as far as shifting the brand identity goes, so big cat was the natural jump. Initially I was a bit worried not having some sort of an obvious looking housecat included somewhere would lose the whole concept of my business (cat trees for house cats). However after some thinking I realized a big cat was a smart move. I take pride in making big, sturdy trees; I have had hundreds of customers tell me my trees are so much stronger and heavier than the average cat tree. So what better way to represent that then with the stronger and heavier version of a house cat; a wild cat! I figured it only made sense that if I am going to be known for making big strong cat trees, I want my logo to reflect this to some capacity. After making that connection, I requested my artist added in some trees behind the jaquar, just to nail home the whole cat "tree" concept haha.
Despite making the change to a new logo, I still do really like my old logo. I think it was clean and succinct. In fact, I am keeping that logo to represent Custom Cat Box, our subscription box service. I think it fits that entity much better than the cribs and am happy to be separating the two businesses in a clear way so they can each have their own brand identity.
One of the things that got me excited about the whole rebrand was the idea of doing merch again. I had only done a merch launch once back in 2021 and this was shortly after getting my last logo made up. I remember being really happy with the merch and had lots of people interested. Despite liking my merch, I found I never wore it. Not to work, not out and about, not really anywhere. In retrospect, I think this was because I didn't really identify with the brand that I had loosely created at the time. I wasn't proud to leave the house showing off my business on a t-shirt or a hoodie, and that shouldn't be the case. So when I was getting the new logo(s) designed I thought to myself "what design would I be proud to wear leaving the house?". The jaquar piece I got designed I love and think looks really cool. I know it is something I will happily leave the house wearing. Same goes for the CCC logo. That one I actually got made purely with the idea of merch in mind. The claw scratch through it was something I had always wanted to incorporate (thats actually what my very first logo was to an extent, so it was nice to bring it back and do it properly). The phrase "CCC" I think sounds nice too. I had never actually referred to my business as such until last fall when I hired my second employee. Amongst conversations with my employees we ended up just shortening the business name to CCC and it really stuck, so I thought it would be cool to turn it into something to share with my followers.
Hopefully this little post gives some insight into where my head was at in regard to the rebrand. I thought the change was a little drastic, but I wanted to explain if anyone was curious. The new logo reveal is just part of what I have planned for the rebrand, I have a few other things that I am excited to share over the coming weeks. Keep an eye on our socials for details on that. And just a reminder we moved to a new Facebook page (long story) haha. Our new one has our updated logo and all of our posts will be made there moving forward.
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